A New Era
by This Polar Noise
Summary: In the lead up to the Battle of New York, Reese and Finch receive a group of numbers that are complicated, even for them…
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**

 **First POI fic I've posted! (And seeing as I started watching it when Number Crunch was first on TV in the UK I really have no excuse)**

 **Uh, so I've been working on this for a while, but I haven't had the guts to publish it until now. I do have more of this (hell I have a whole 'verse planned out), but for now I reckon it's just going to be a one-off. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **Set mid-Avengers Assemble, and late season 2, after Relevance but before Zero Day/God Mode.**

* * *

 **1) 'It's a New Era Now, and Things Are About to Get Really Weird'**

 **(Finch to Caleb Phipps, 2 Pi R)**

Harold heard the them before he saw them. The long, light footsteps meant Mr Reese, the clicking of nails against the tiled floor was Bear trotting next to him. The fact that Bear was doing that instead of immediately rushing to greet his other master when they got into the library meant Reese had brought some kind of breakfast, Harold knew. Good. He'd already earned it.

"Good morning, Finch." Reese said brightly as he finally appeared, reaching around Harold to place a cardboard cup of sencha green tea and a box of donuts on the desk by his keyboard. He seemed to be in a good mood for the first time in a while this morning, Harold noticed. Then again, it had been a few days since they'd been given a particularly strenuous number to deal with, and they were both significantly more well-rested than usual.

It was a pity he'd have to break that streak.

"Good morning, Mr Reese. We've received five numbers this morning," Harold said, pausing to glare at one of the faces on his screen. He hadn't bothered putting that photograph on the screen yet. "One of our regulars, two apparently unconnected strangers and two… others."

"Who's the regular? Zoe? Leon?"

Finch just twitched an eyebrow. It had been a good few weeks since they'd had to stop one of Mr Tau's hairbrained scams getting him killed, so it was a pretty safe bet, and John hadn't seen Zoe in a while so that had probably just been wishful thinking. If it wasn't them, though, that left two others. One was Carl Elias, but prison had been forcing him to keep a pretty low profile recently, as far as being directly involved in crimes went, and Harold wouldn't be giving John _that_ look if it was just his occasional chess partner. The other, well… John took a second to suppress a groan.

"It's Stark again, isn't it?"

It felt like every single time that asshole was in the city they got his number, and what with his new tower being built, that was a lot. Finch probably knew Stark's social security number better than he knew his own at this point, and every time had signified an assortment of unusual and _really annoying_ day's work. The only advantage was that Stark was so insanely self-absorbed that he never even noticed what was happening, but even that meant that after the five times they'd met, he still didn't even so much as remember John's name, never mind his cover story.

"Can't you just send him a message or something? The guy's a superhero, he should be able to look after himself."

"What do you think I did the last three times?" Finch said, not looking away from his screen. "There, it's done. With any luck he'll actually pay attention to this one."

Judging by Finch's tone, he believed that could happen about as much as Reese did, which was not at all.

"The guy needs to get a hobby, Finch." Reese said, taking a donut out of the box he'd placed on the desk. "One that doesn't involve pissing off everyone he meets."

Finch stood up stiffly and raised his eyebrows at him. "That sounds kinda like the pot telling the kettle that it needs a hobby, Mr Reese."

John hid his smile by turning to face the number's photographs where Finch had stuck them to the glass, even though he knew Finch would have heard his soft snort of amusement. "Who are the others?"

"Natalie Rushman is a former model who worked in the legal department of Stark Industries. She was Stark's assistant for a while in 2010, then got fired. There's been no sign of her since then, no social media updates or bank transactions, and the address in Stark Industries' system is a PO box. No close friends, no living relatives; her disappearance was never reported."

"Could Stark be our perpetrator this time, not the victim?"

"It's possible, but it seems more likely that her entire identity was an alias, if a well constructed one. She was fired on grounds of corporate espionage…"

"More like actual espionage." Reese interrupted, finally realising why he recognised the woman in the photograph. She'd changed her hair again since the last time he'd seen her, and there was none of that ever-present anger in her eyes on the photograph. "You were right, Finch, it is an alias. That isn't Natalie Rushman, that's Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow. She's an assassin, and a good one. Last I heard she was with SHIELD."

"Last you heard?" Finch looked sceptical, and he had every reason to. He'd obviously know about SHIELD, the government's worst kept secret organisation, but a lot of their agents didn't have the acting skills to seem as innocent as Romanov did, even when they got cover identities as detailed as hers. Plus, those cute little codenames SHIELD gave their top agents never helped when you were trying to get someone who hadn't worked in intelligence to take them seriously. Reese still struggled to say some of their designations with a straight face, even after he'd seen them fight.

Reese met Finch's gaze evenly. "The time before that she was still working for the Russians."

Finch's expression gained that hint of annoyance it always did when he missed something like this. His eyes narrowed slightly as Reese continued.

"This guy, Clint Barton," he said, gesturing to the photo next to Romanov's. "I'm pretty sure that is his real name, or at least the alias he uses most of the time. He, Romanov and their handler are the best team in the government."

Something about only getting two of the team's numbers concerned him a little. It had been a few years since he'd seen any of them, god, it had to have been 2008, Budapest, and god knew a lot could change in four years, but that guy in the cheap suit, the one who was always there but never introduced himself, had put himself in the direct line of fire to get Reese and Barton out of that one. That was more than Snow had ever done for him and Stanton, and both of them had brushed it off like it was no big deal. Maybe the guy had risked his life once too often.

"Does he have any… other names?"

"If you mean aliases, I don't know. If you mean codenames," John paused. "He's Hawkeye."

Finch glanced over at him incredulously.

"No, really."

"Did you have any of these names I should know about, Mr Reese?" Finch's expression stayed blank, but there was a sudden twinge of wry amusement in his tone that cut through that apparent seriousness.

"No." None that Finch 'should know about', anyway. He was lucky to have just got 'The Man in a Suit' from Carter and the feds. There were a lot worse names to be stuck with, all things considered, and most of them had been temporary designations given to him by SHIELD when he'd been working inter-agency missions with their agents.

"I suppose it would be too obvious to assume that SHIELD had instructed their assassins to kill him? The Machine probably wouldn't have sent us both sets of numbers if that was the case, but with the way it's been behaving lately…"

Reese shook his head. "He's too high profile. They'd use someone who wasn't famous enough to have their own code name."

"Someone like you, Mr Reese?"

"Probably." he shrugged. That comment had stung, somehow. It had been a while since Finch had said anything like that to him in that tone, even if it was the truth. There was a lot on Finch's shoulders right now though, Reese knew, with the damage that had been done to the Machine. The numbers had been coming more regularly this week but he had to be wondering, like John was, if there was someone they'd missed, a victim they couldn't save or a perpetrator they hadn't stopped. When they got so many numbers at once, it was usually connected, and John had to wonder if there was something the Machine had missed that had put whatever this was into action, not that he'd say that aloud. They were both thinking the same. Looked like they were going to have a rough couple of days.

John looked at the other photos on the board, deciding to change the subject. "Who are the 'others'?"

"Unfortunately, these two may prove to be the most complex. Until 2005, Doctor Bruce Banner was a pioneer in both biochemistry and nuclear physics," Finch paused, gesturing at what looked to be a pretty old photograph of the man in question, stuck on the glass between Romanov and Barton. "Then there was an… incident in the laboratory he was working in when he was working on a classified project for the government and three people ended up dead. He's been on the run ever since. The last sighting of him was in Guatemala two years ago, but he's managed to erase most of his identity since then."

John tilted his head slightly. "What sort of incident?"

Finch looked at him, eyebrows knitting together in disbelief. "Did you spend much of 2008 in New York City, Mr Reese?"

He shrugged. "I was here for a few days in February."

That seemed to pacify him slightly. Finch limped back over to his computer.

"This," he said, typing rapidly for a second and bringing up a video on one of his screens. "Didn't happen until June."

The footage wasn't clear, whoever had been filming had probably been using the camera on their cell phone with hands that were obviously shaking, all that was obvious was something green moving around a way off from the camera. John leant on the desk next to Finch, trying to work out what he was seeing. Then the movement got closer and he realised.

"I can assure you the footage is quite real, if that's what you-"

"Harold," he interrupted softly, trying to keep his voice steady. "What _the hell_ was that?"

"' _That_ ' is what happened to Banner after the incident."

"So I'm going to say this guy isn't our victim."

"According to reports, he isn't like that all of the time, just when angered or put under stress."

"He's about to be involved in a life-threatening situation, Finch, I'd say that would put him 'under stress'."

"All the same, I think he's more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator. If he's back in New York then he's likely come back on to the military's radar as well as ours, and he made some very powerful and outspoken enemies at the time of the accident, including one General Thaddeus Ross."

John had to suppress an eye roll. Somehow it didn't surprise him that Ross had declared war on Banner, the poor bastard. He'd met Ross a couple of times back before he'd joined the CIA, and the guy was an idiot. The problem was, he was a very powerful idiot. He'd have to do some investigating, but with any luck it was just a matter of getting Banner back off grid before someone could provoke him.

"What about the last one? No picture?"

"Steven Grant Rogers was an army captain in World War II. He would be in his mid-nineties if he were around today, but he's been MIA, presumed dead, since his plane went down somewhere in the Arctic Circle in 1945."

"Captain Steve Rogers." John looked at him, keeping his expression carefully blank.

Finch sank back in his chair and took a long drink from his tea, clearly wishing it was something stronger. "Yes, Mr Reese. We just received the social security number of Captain America."

"So it's going to be one of those days."


	2. Chapter 2

It took about another hour or so of sharing information for Finch to let him out of the library, insisting on John telling him every possible detail he could conjure up about Romanov and Barton, including the few inter-agency missions they'd ended up working together, the approximate dates of said missions and, it felt like, what Barton preferred for breakfast, then telling John what he needed to know about Banner, and all the relevant information he'd managed to dig up on Rogers, which admittedly wasn't much. John appreciated the information on Banner, he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about getting into a fight with that guy blind, but it wasn't like he was going to run into Captain America hanging around on a street corner in Midtown and not just because, from what John could remember from the comics he'd read as a kid, Steve Rogers had been a Brooklyn boy. In the end they'd agreed that it would be best for him to investigate some of the known government safehouses in the city, in case SHIELD happened to be using one. The possibility was slim, but in all honesty Reese was just relieved he didn't have to go and babysit a sulking billionaire again.

"The media this morning are all singing Stark's praises again," Finch said dryly in his ear as he reached the first building. "Apparently Stark Tower has just become 'a Beacon of Clean Energy', his words, not mine, from a press release they sent out last night."

John could imagine the look on his partner's face at having to read those words out loud, and couldn't stop a smile as he started to pick the locks on the apartment he'd stayed in one of the times they'd been in New York. He knew the CIA and SHIELD's similar targets sometimes led to them sharing safehouses, and while this one looked like it had been empty for a while, it was always worth checking.

"Even with Stark's apparent bad memory, his security system is exceptional," Finch continued. "It'll notice if you go in under a different name, but if you use the same cover you have the other times you've had to meet Stark face to face, it might correlate your face with potential threats on its creator, so I'm sending Miss Shaw to the Tower for the meeting."

While he was glad of the assistance, Reese couldn't help but wince slightly. Shaw was turning out to be a good asset, but sending her in as anything other than the muscle could get a little messy. He knew she must be able to act pretty well in order to make it as far as she had as a covert operative in the ISA, but Shaw was still so much of an unknown. When Harold had mentioned Stark, John had hoped to get his number out of the way quickly, but it couldn't just be a coincidence that they'd got the numbers of _two_ superheroes in one go, even if one of them was supposed to be dead, not unless the problems with the Machine were a lot worse than Harold had predicted and it was somehow getting threats from comic books. They'd have enough on their plates with this before Shaw possibly picked a fight with one of the most powerful men in the country. Although, he had to admit, that wasn't an entirely unappealing concept.

* * *

Another day, another job. Not like Shaw objected to getting paid, but Finch's caution was beginning to drive her a little crazy; it would have been easier just to break into the monstrosity that was Stark Tower, catch Stark unaware and drag him off to a safe house for a few days while they worked out the threat and dealt with all the other numbers, but nope, she had to go in the difficult, boring way undercover as a journalist who wanted to interview him about whatever crap he was doing with his electricity these days. It wasn't like she _couldn't_ do it, she was a damn good actress when she needed to be even if the boys didn't appreciate that, it was just that Shaw tasted bile at the back of her throat just thinking about having to kiss this guy's ass for long enough to determine the threat.

For such a high profile target, the security in this place was terrible, not even metal detectors, just a big guy in an expensive suit glaring suspiciously at everyone who walked past. Maybe it was just because they were still working on so much of the building, but jeez, she could see at least four places to plant a bomb already and she was only in the lobby.

She sighed roughly (a little over the top, maybe, but she was going to take every opportunity she had to tell Finch how she felt about playing bodyguard to a goddamn superhero) and adjusted her jacket to cover her gun better, then approached the front desk with her best fake smile.

"Sameen Lopez, here for an interview with Mr Stark?"

The young man looked up from his computer with a look of panic, obviously seeing through her smile.

"He, uh, isn't here. Got called out on government business this morning and didn't bother telling anyone when he'd be back. Damn, I thought we'd rescheduled everyone," He paused, typing something rapidly. "We have another appointment for August twelfth?"

Shaw straightened, rolling her eyes and turning to leave without replying.

"Miss Lopez? Hey!"

Shaw stalked straight back out of the building, ignoring the receptionists calls and the dirty look the security guy was giving her. "Guessing you caught all of that, Finch. Any idea what 'government business' might be?"

She heard him typing rapidly as she started back down the street to the subway.

"No record of his plane leaving his private airfield, and no reported sightings of Iron Man either. His sudden disappearance may have something to do with the apparent evacuation of a SHIELD facility down in New Mexico last night."

Shaw let her shoulders fall in exasperation and groaned. "Please don't tell me we're going to Albuquerque."

"No, I'm not sure any of us deserve that…" Finch said slowly, and she could hear the sound of typing again. "If the Machine gave us his number, that means if he isn't currently in the city, he should be back by the time the danger becomes immediate."

"The boys having any luck with our other numbers?"

"No sign of Barton or Romanov in SHIELD's usual places," John's voice came through. "Checking up on Fusco for signs of Banner. As for Rogers… Are you sure your Machine hasn't blown a fuse, Harold?"

Shaw tapped mute on her earpiece. Finch never said anything about having to listen to his and Reese's mildly homoerotic banter, and it wasn't like Finch couldn't turn it on again remotely. As it was, Finch had hacked her a reservation at a place with a damn good lunch for her interview with Stark as a bribe for dealing with his ego, and she planned to use Finch's running tab there to her advantage. If nothing else, at least she'd get a steak out of this.


End file.
